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Inquisitorial   Listen
adjective
Inquisitorial  adj.  
1.
Pertaining to inquisition; making rigorous and unfriendly inquiry; searching; as, inquisitorial power. "Illiberal and inquisitorial abuse." "He conferred on it a kind of inquisitorial and censorious power even over the laity, and directed it to inquire into all matters of conscience."
2.
Pertaining to the Court of Inquisition or resembling its practices. "Inquisitorial robes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Inquisitorial" Quotes from Famous Books



... irregularities does not allow the man of good intentions to content himself with noble desires merely, but spurs him on to greater endeavors to carry them out—man is created for action; the second protects us from the inquisitorial questioning of motives, for it is easy for the most innocent to fall under grave suspicion. To this inconsistency of feeling we owe the necessary legal principle that deeds only, not intentions, are punishable. God has reserved for himself ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... Inquisition had associated, in their superstition, with the throne of God itself. God and the king were inseparable words in the mouth of a citizen of New Spain, and he that dared to separate them was thought worthy of Inquisitorial fires. They owed the same reverence which the Aztecs rendered to their ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... whose conduct so many prying eyes were seeking for sources of accusation to gratify herself even by the overthrow of an absurdity, when that overthrow might incur the stigma of innovation. The Court of Versailles was jealous of its Spanish inquisitorial etiquette. It had been strictly wedded to its pageantries since the time of the great Anne of Austria. The sagacious and prudent provisions of this illustrious contriver were deemed the ne plus ultra of royal ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... mode of offering assertion for proof, so unauthorized and even unprecedented except in the condemnation of a Galileo, the persecution of a Copernicus, and a few other acts of inquisitorial authority, in the times of ignorance and superstition, affords but a lamentable instance of one of his remarks, that this is far from being ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... justly called, especially at the epoch of Foresti's incarceration, retained the galling chain on the limbs, cut off the supply of moral and intellectual vitality, refused appropriate occupation, baffled hope, eclipsed knowledge, and kept up a vile inquisitorial process to goad the crushed heart, sap the heroic will, and stupefy or alienate the mental faculties; dawn ushered in the twilight of a mausoleum, noon fell dimly on paralyzed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... hand, is more conspicuous than the spirit of fair play to the criminal, which struck foreign observers.[11] It was deeply rooted in the whole system. The English judge was not an official agent of an inquisitorial system, but an impartial arbitrator between the prisoner and the prosecutor. In political cases especially a marked change was brought about by the revolution of 1688. If our ancestors talked some nonsense about trial by jury, the system certainly insured ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... reformers in that country. Some of their leading principles, indeed, are probably of an earlier date, and seem to have been borrowed from the great apostle of Geneva. As Mr. Southey is the first author, of this persuasion, that has yet been brought before us for judgment, we cannot discharge our inquisitorial office conscientiously, without premising a few words upon the nature and tendency of the tenets he has helped ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed. In this little, lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and by the license of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established herself, with her infant child. A mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. Children, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities, would creep nigh enough to behold ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... could pose as the conciliator of contending factions. The Jacobins were content when they saw the regicide Cambaceres become Second Consul; and friends of constitutional monarchy remembered that the Third Consul, Lebrun, had leanings towards the Feuillants of 1791. Fouche at the inquisitorial Ministry of Police, and Merlin, Berlier, Real, and Boulay de la Meurthe in the Council of State seemed a barrier to all monarchical schemes; and the Jacobins therefore remained quiet, even while Catholic worship was again publicly celebrated, while Vendean rebels were pardoned, and plotting emigres ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... the family render searching inquiry difficult and often undesirable. But the mercifulness of a thorough investigation is that, once well done, it need not be repeated, and by saving endless blundering it also saves a family from much charitable meddling. Its seemingly inquisitorial features are justified by the fact that it is not made with any purpose of finding people out, but with the sole purpose of finding out how to ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... than to-morrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock which at one simple motion of my hand will rush to add burning coals to Thy stake, on which I will burn Thee for having dared to come and trouble us in our work. For, if there ever was one who deserved more than any of the others our inquisitorial fires—it is Thee! To-morrow ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky

... institution of which an account will be given in another chapter.[166] To this secret investigation Briconnet objected, and begged to be tried in open court by the entire body of parliament;[167] but his petition was rejected, and his examination proceeded before the inquisitorial commission. What measures were there taken to influence him is not known. To Martial Mazurier, lately an enthusiastic preacher of the "Lutheran" doctrines, who had himself, through fear, receded from his advanced position, the doubtful honor is ascribed of having ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... a delay granted, it would be for eight days—and thus you perceive how nicely Angelo Duras had weighed all the intricacies of the case, and how accurately he had calculated the length of the term to be gained by the exercise of the subtleties of the inquisitorial law. Therefore, as no advocate will appear to demand delay, Flora is certain to be condemned to-morrow night, and the release of Francisco may take place simultaneously—for when once the grand inquisitor shall have pronounced the extreme sentence, no human power can reverse it. And now," added ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... doctrinal discussions were permitted on the floor of Synod, but only with the express proviso "that the fundamental principle of Protestantism, the right of free research, be not infringed upon, and that no endeavor be made to elevate the Ministerium to an inquisitorial tribunal." (679.) Thus the entire heritage of the Reformation, together with its Scriptural principle and cardinal doctrine of justification by faith, had gone by the board, the unionism and indifferentism of the Halle pastors having served as the first entering wedge—just ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... incidents of my landing in Liverpool, except perhaps to comment upon the extraordinary behaviour of the English customs officials. Without wishing in any way to disturb international relations, one cannot help noticing the rough and inquisitorial methods of the English customs men as compared with the gentle and affectionate ways of the American officials at New York. The two trunks that I brought with me were dragged brutally into an open shed, the ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... Quixote hears his own laughter, he hears the divine laughter, and since he is not a pessimist, since he believes in life eternal, he has to fight, attacking the modern, scientific, inquisitorial orthodoxy in order to bring in a new and impossible Middle Age, dualistic, contradictory, passionate. Like a new Savonarola, an Italian Quixote of the end of the fifteenth century, he fights against this Modern Age that began with Machiavelli and that will end comically. He fights against ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... of these last moments of his gave him inquisitorial power, and the too cold wife could not conceal from him the flight which had taken place ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... Inquisition of heresy and magic; and something of the same kind may have happened in the case of his Paduan contemporary, Giovannino Sanguinacci, who was known as an innovator in medical practice. He escaped, however, with banishment. Nor must it be forgotten that the inquisitorial power of the Dominicans was exercised less uniformly in Italy than in the North. Tyrants and free cities in the fourteenth century treated the clergy at times with such sovereign contempt that very different ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... could be ruled (or approximately ruled, for inquisitorial government could hardly be so much as attempted) by some small means adapted to his size and to his physical aspect, it would be well for his health, but that seems at times impossible. By no effort can his elders altogether ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... of Kentucky and Tennessee. It would be difficult to find a precedent in history for so sudden and sweeping a change of sentiment on a leading doctrine of moral theology. Dissent from the novel dogma was suppressed with more than inquisitorial rigor. It was less perilous to hold Protestant opinions in Spain or Austria than to hold, in Carolina or Alabama, the opinions which had but lately been commended to universal acceptance by the unanimous voice of great religious bodies, and proclaimed as undisputed principles by leading ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... mighty, now a foul image of decay and death. Kindled with new life, the nations teemed with a progeny of heroes, and the stormy glories of the sixteenth century rose on awakened Europe. But Spain was the citadel of darkness,—a monastic cell, an inquisitorial dungeon, where no ray could pierce. She was the bulwark of the Church, against whose adamantine front the wrath of innovation beat in vain. In every country of Europe the party of freedom and reform was the national party, the party of reaction and absolutism was the Spanish party, leaning ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... of maintenance to all who are incapable of working, whatever may be the occasion of that incapacity, has not overwhelmed you with invalids and old people without number. Or have we yet to learn of some provisions made to defend you from such guests? And how, without exercising a painfully inquisitorial control, can you prevent the lazy from enjoying the careless leisure which the right of maintenance guarantees to real invalids? I can perfectly well understand that your intelligent Freelanders, with their multitudinous wants, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... opponents, and provide for my friends with their places. I can justify the refusal to adopt this policy only by the steadiness and consistency of my adhesion to my own. If I depart from this in any one instance, I shall be called upon by my friends to do the same in many. An invidious and inquisitorial scrutiny into the personal disposition of public officers will creep through the whole Union, and the most sordid and selfish passions will be kindled into activity, to distort the conduct and misrepresent the feelings of men, whose places ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... distance if the challenge were followed by a bullet. Under the lamp I stopped for the officer to come up. I was not really frightened, but I cannot deny that I felt very nervous, as he came up, and, in an inquisitorial tone, asked, "What are you doing here?" I replied in German which was certainly comical and not a little shaky, for it was a fragmentary remembrance of the German read in my early college course, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... "You are inquisitorial, but I'll answer: Because it suits me. My rooms yonder are dark and depressing. I am ill, and want to sit here and breathe the fresh air and think. Is there anything ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence of death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution—perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel. This only for a brief period; for presently I heard no more. Yet, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... stadholder, Nieuwenaar, and caused one of his confidants, a Brabanter, Gerard Prounick, surnamed Deventer, to be elected burgomaster of Utrecht, although as a foreigner he was disqualified from holding that office. An even more arbitrary act was his creation of a Chamber of Finance armed with inquisitorial powers, thus invading the rights of the Provincial Estates and depriving the Council of State of one of its most important functions. To make matters worse, he appointed Nieuwenaar to preside over the new ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... Rachel a grudge to this day for the look she cast upon me ere she departed on her mission, the sour, suspicious, inquisitorial look that plainly demanded, 'What are you here for, I wonder?' Her mistress did not fail to notice it, and a shade of uneasiness ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... some notice from their peculiarity. The first of these, the Press Room, a dark close chamber, near Waterman's Hall, obtained its name from an immense wooden machine kept in it, with which such prisoners as refused to plead to their indictments were pressed to death—a species of inquisitorial torture not discontinued until so lately as the early part of the reign of George the Third, when it was abolished by an express statute. Into the second, denominated the Bilbowes,—also a dismal place,—refractory prisoners ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... of interruption, or of impediment, to my repeating with the greatest possible freedom the facts I had recorded, and my opinions upon them, I took care to transpose and abbreviate the words in such a manner as to run no risk from the most inquisitorial visit. No search, however, was made, and no one was aware that I was spending my miserable prison-hours to so good a purpose. Whenever I heard the jailer or other person open the door I covered my little table with a cloth, and placed ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... gloom of the guard-houses, barracks, and military hospitals. They strewed with their tiny bodies the roads that led into the outlying regions of the Empire, and those that managed to get there were fading away slowly in the barracks which had been turned into inquisitorial dungeons. This martyrdom of children, set in a military environment, represents a singular phenomenon even in the extensive annals ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... relation with them, and implied to them that He was willing to answer their cry. One can fancy how the poor blind faces would light up with a flush of eager expectation, and how swift would be the answer. The question is not cold or inquisitorial. It is more than half a promise, and a powerful aid to the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... our Lord's noble and transparent words. We shall see that He adopted another tone when He was properly arraigned before the assembled Sanhedrim; but in this more private, injudicial, inquisitorial interview, with one scathing rebuke He tore away the cloak of assumed ignorance with which this crafty man veiled his sinister purpose, and laid His secret thoughts open ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... choose,— In the adjoining gallery! There go! [GUENDOLEN goes.] Another lesson to me! You might bid A child disguise his heart's sore, and conduct Some sly investigation point by point With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch The inquisitorial cleverness some praise. If you had told me yesterday, "There's one You needs must circumvent and practise with, Entrap by policies, if you would worm The truth out: and that one is—Mildred!" There, There—reasoning is thrown away on it! Prove she's unchaste... ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning

... exclusively to Germany, the right, namely, to do whatever they have the physical force to do. These so-called courts, of whose arbitrary and irresponsible and brutal nature I have tried to convey some notion, were mere inquisitorial bodies, guided by no principle save that of interest in their own bloody nature; they did as they pleased, and would have scorned a Jeffreys as too lenient, a Lynch as too formal, a Spanish auto da fe as too technical, and a tribunal of the French Revolution as ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... without pressing the point, having first settled the gamecock on his extemporised perch and taken an affectionate farewell of the pigling. Latimer undressed and got into bed with all due speed, judging that the pig would abate its inquisitorial restlessness once the light was turned out. As a substitute for a cosy, straw-bedded sty the room offered, at first inspection, few attractions, but the disconsolate animal suddenly discovered an appliance in which the most luxuriously contrived piggeries ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... sake; but very few, indeed, and scarcely one woman, love the truth for the truth's sake. Yet; without the latter, the former may become, as it has a thousand times been, the source of persecution of the truth,—the pretext and motive of inquisitorial cruelty and party zealotry. To see clearly that the love of the good and the true is ultimately identical—is given only to those who love both sincerely and without any ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... fact, however, that in the fragmentary documents of inquisitorial proceedings which have reached us, the references to torture are singularly few.... In the six hundred and thirty-six sentences borne upon the register of Toulouse from 1309 to 1323, the only allusion to torture is in the recital of the ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... Severus ordained that the city prefect should prevent slaves from being prostituted[209]. Aurelian gave his slaves who had transgressed to be heard according to the laws by public judges[210]. Tacitus procured a decree that slaves were not to be put to inquisitorial torture in a case affecting a master's life, not even if the charge was high treason[211]. So much for the laws that mitigated slavery under the Empire. They were not ideal; but they would in more ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... wealth; and now, since he had ceased to desire these, the question was—what for? But the genius of that Maryan with his questions! He had gone down so deeply into his father's being that those questions remained there and continued their inquisitorial labor. A beautiful and genial fellow! A young prince; almost a sage. But what does that signify if—he lacks something? What is it that he lacks, and so lacks that he is as if he had nothing? What is it that ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... but a misjudgment can be formed, prevail there ever since. The noble Sterling, a radiant child of the empyrean, clad in bright auroral hues in the memory of all that knew him,—what is he doing here in inquisitorial sanbenito, with nothing but ghastly spectralities prowling round him, and inarticulately screeching and gibbering what they call their judgment ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... the State can be coordinate and independent of each other if the one claims and exercises the power to reprove and to censure all the official acts and all the private conversations of the other, and this upon ex parte testimony before a secret inquisitorial committee in short, to assume a general censorship over the other? The idea is as absurd in public as it would be in private life. Should the President attempt to assert and maintain his own independence, future Covode committees ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... question, however, was not argued out by Pulteney or any other speaker on his side upon such a ground as the hardship to the poor man. The tyranny of an excise system, of any excise system, its unconstitutional, despotic, and inquisitorial nature—this was the chief ground of attack. Sir {314} William Wyndham sounded the alarm which was soon to be followed by a tremendous echo. He declared the proposed tax "not only destructive to the trade, but inconsistent with the liberties of this nation." ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... been, and for ever must be. Wo to this land of ours, if ever Rome gets the ascendancy here! Her creed is the same here and now, in this respect, that it has everywhere been, and must always be. It is her boast that she is always right, and knows no change. She practices her unholy inquisitorial and Jesuitical doctrines in this country, as far as she can and dare act them out. Her whole system is adverse to our republican institutions and she hesitates not to declare it. She has publicly burned our Bible in different ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... autumn, a commissioner, sent from Teheran to examine into the proceedings of the mission, made an inquisitorial visit, and went all through the building, peeping into the chambers, and making himself and suite every where at home. Coming into the recitation room, where most of the girls were engaged in study, he selected, a large, robust pupil, who could speak Turkish, and questioned ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... At Oxford he accepted to some extent the Elizabethan Settlement of religion, but not sufficiently to satisfy the Company of Grocers, who eventually withdrew their exhibition. This was a sign for further inquisitorial proceedings, which made him leave the University, and retire to Dublin; but he was driven also thence by the zealots for Protestantism. Eventually he went over to the English College at Douay, whence he migrated to Rome, entered the Society of Jesus, and ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... according to his sense, on the first heretic of eminence, who should venture within the precincts of the Halidome. A heart, naturally kind and noble, was, in this instance, as it has been in many more, deceived by its own generosity. Father Eustace would have been a bad administrator of the inquisitorial power of Spain, where that power was omnipotent, and where judgment was exercised without danger to those who inflicted it. In such a situation his rigour might have relented in favour of the criminal, whom ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... and inquisitorial tribunal takes cognizance of crimes and delinquencies, more especially witchcraft and murder; and also operates as a mediator in wars, and dissentions among powerful tribes and chiefs. Its interference is generally attended with effect, ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... while she alternately listened to the details of the girl's farm life, the manner of the gold camp, the history of her arrival there and the many vicissitudes which had followed, and voiced the questions of her inquisitorial mind. Now she leant back in her chair and slowly sipped a cup of strong, milkless tea, while her eyes watched the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... protecting shell of reserve that guards the growth of individuality, interposed, and her dealings with things unseen ceased to attract the attention of her elders. It was John, her senior by two years, who preserved an interest, of an inquisitorial sort, in what he had decided to call the Troops of Midian. There was a sacerdotal turn about John. He had early decided upon the Church as his vocation, and only hesitated between the roles of Primate of Ireland and Pope of Rome. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... the inquisitorial procedure which obtained under Spanish rule, the disposition of criminal cases was even slower than that of civil cases. The cause would be commenced, either de officio, by the judge who had a ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... 164 a), and teachers were deprived of their positions for nonconformity (R. 164 b). More effectively to handle the problem a series of laws were enacted, the result of which was to institute such an inquisitorial policy that the position of schoolmaster became almost intolerable. In 1580 a law (R. 165) imposed a fine of L10 on any one employing a schoolmaster of unsound faith, with disability and imprisonment for the schoolmaster so offending; in 1603 another law ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... John Wesley, Richard Watson, and others, and from examples which he cited (John Nelson, "the apostolic fellow-labourer of John Wesley," etc.) that such a doctrine savoured of despotism, and was harsh and inquisitorial in its effects. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... silence on such questions. But it cannot be. The tradesmen and the professional men whom I represent say to me, "Why are we to be loaded, certainly for some years, probably for ever, with a tax, admitted by those who impose it to be grievous, unequal, inquisitorial? Why are we to be loaded in time of peace with burdens heretofore reserved for the exigencies of war?" The paper manufacturer, the soap manufacturer, say, "Why, if the Income Tax is to be continued, are our important ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... could not help a slight tremor; which was increased as the Catalan Lieutenant bent upon him an inquisitorial look of his grey eyes, that glanced keenly under eyebrows long and grizzled like ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... possessors: Show us by what title you possess; and it proposes to pass its judgments upon the axiom that whoever renders service to society should be able to have some appropriate share in the national wealth."[297] In other words, an inquisitorial tribunal with arbitrary powers would be empowered to confiscate at will. "Socialism is not a plan to despoil the rich: it is a plan to stop the rich from despoiling the poor. Socialism is not a thief; it is a policeman."[298] "Do any say we attack ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... occasion, the Parson, who had always his eye and heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realization of his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent was already at work among the peasants, and that magisterial and inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the Squire; seen, in short, the signs of a breach between classes, and the precursors of the ever inflammable feud between the rich and the poor, meditated nothing less than a great ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... drew from his hip pocket the revolver which he had found on the floor, near the dead man's body. The supreme test was about to be made. The wily police captain would now play his trump card. It was not without reason that his enemies charged him with employing unlawful methods in conducting his inquisitorial examinations. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... especially as she did not weep aloud, and her attention became fixed on the altered countenance, red eyes, and swoln features of her darling foster-child. She instantly commenced an investigation into the cause of his distress, after the usual inquisitorial manner of matrons of her class. "What is the matter wi' my bairn?" and "Wha has been vexing my bairn?" with similar questions, at last ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... theater. She was as intolerent to the Jews as her father had been, banishing them all from the country. She lived in constant fear of conspiracies and revolutions, and, as a desperate safeguard, established a secret inquisitorial court to punish all who should express any displeasure with the measures of government. Spies and informers of the most worthless character filled the land, and multitudes of the most virtuous inhabitants of the empire, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... the accused is usually put through some sort of an inquisitorial process by the captain at the station-house. If he is not very successful at getting anything out of the prisoner the latter is turned over to the sergeant and a couple of officers who can use methods of a more urgent character. If the prisoner ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... Delany was wont to say for years thereafter, that damn Mathusek case just went bad on him. He had believed that in the comparative secrecy of the inquisitorial chamber he could easily pretend that he had originally made an honest mistake and was no longer positive of the defendant's identity, in which case when the grand jury threw out the case nobody would ever know the reason and no chickens ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... immortal ancestor of this noble lord, frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty, and establish the religion of Britain against the tyranny of Rome, if these worse than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are endured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal thirsting for blood!—against whom?—Your protestant brethren—to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, by ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... Spanish character have, when theology, avarice, and lust controlled the conquest? Pure minds and magnanimous intentions went in the same ships with adventurers, diseased soldiers, cold and superstitious men of business, and shaven monks with their villanous low brows and thin inquisitorial smile. The average character speedily obtained ascendency, because the best men were to some extent partakers of it. Columbus was eager to make his great discovery pay well, to preserve the means of continued exploration. In one hand he lifted high the banner of possession ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... and the Government. It would render the execution of the law less expensive and more certain, remove obstructions to industry, lessen the temptations to evade the law, diminish the violations and frauds perpetrated upon its provisions, make its operations less inquisitorial, and greatly reduce in numbers the army of taxgatherers created by the system, who "take from the mouth of honest labor the bread it has earned." Retrenchment, reform, and economy should be carried into every ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... ourselves. Do you hear what I am saying, Herbert! Leave off your high tragedy airs and attend to reason, as expressed in your sister's advice. While your wife is my invalid guest, I will not have her subjected to any inquisitorial process. There is a time for everything under the sun, saith the preacher. This is the season for tender forbearance, and ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... and fined or reprimanded their kings for the affability of their manners, or the size [135] of their wives. Over education—over social habits-over the regulations relative to ambassadors and strangers—over even the marshalling of armies and the number of troops, they extended their inquisitorial jurisdiction. They became, in fact, the actual ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... room. No doubt a boa-constrictor could not live comfortably if his soft, muscular sides got fifty pokes a day from as many sticks or parasols. Edward Cross, mild, gentle, gentlemanly, Prince of show-keepers, used to be very indignant at the inquisitorial desire possessed, especially by some of the fairer sex, to try the relative hardness and softness of serpents and monkeys, and other mammals and creatures. This story of the mandrill may excuse this ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... between surface and population, which, by scattering the well-bred and intelligent, a class at all times relatively small, serves greatly to lessen their influence in imparting tone to society; something to the inquisitorial habits of our pious forefathers, who appear to have thought that the charities were nought, and, in the very teeth of revelation, that Heaven was to be stormed by impertinences; while a good deal is to be conceded to the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... impotent rage which sought to purchase life and safety for the Romish Church by the murder of Huss and of Jerome of Prague is instructive, if it is not pleasing. The truth was too true to be spoken. Never has the Church of Rome, in its inquisitorial madness, been so blinded with fury and passion as then. Weakened by internal feuds, with two Popes struggling and hurling anathemas at each other, and with a priesthood at its lowest point, not of ignorance, but of carnality, it seemed in peril ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... truth, nothing was further from my mind or taste than such an enterprise; but as the demon had complete possession of him, and his passion was stimulated by the lies of a cabin-boy, I was forced to undergo an inquisitorial examination, which I resisted manfully but fruitlessly. The Bloomer-dame, who knew her man, assumed such an air of outraged innocence and calumniated virtue, interlarded with sobs, tears, and hysterics, that her perplexed husband was quite at his wit's end, but terminated the scene by ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... against Rome produced a counter Renaissance in the bosom of the ancient Church herself. In presence of that peril she woke from sloth and corruption, and girded herself to beat back the invading heresies, by force or by craft, by inquisitorial fires, by the arms of princely and imperial allies, and by the self-sacrificing enthusiasm of her saints and martyrs. That time of danger produced the exalted zeal of Xavier and the intense, thoughtful, organizing zeal of Loyola. After a century had passed, the flame still burned, and ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... that gesture," he muttered. The vague inquisitorial woman-figures had sunk fathoms ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... decline, government itself withdrawing more and more from interference with the operation of life, and liberty find its way back to the individual and to the social and economic groups. We live now under a more tyrannical and inquisitorial regime, in spite of (partly perhaps because of) its democratic forms and dogmas, than is common in historical records. Nationalization or state socialism would mean so great a magnifying of this condition that existence would soon become both grotesque and intolerable. ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... the Superintendent to a mission field varied according to the nature of the field and the character of the work done, between an inquisitorial process and a triumphal march. Nothing escaped his keen eye. It needed no questioning on his part to become possessed of almost all the facts necessary to his full information about the field, the work, the financial condition, and the general efficiency ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... onion!" said the Tinker, lifting pot-lid to lunge at the bubbling contents with an inquisitorial fork. "An onion is the king o' vegetables! Eat it raw and it's good; b'ile it and it's better; fry it and it can't be ekalled; stoo it wi' a rabbit and you've got a stoo as savoury an' full o' flavour—smells all ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... Among the attendants at the Leipzig Debate was Hoogstraten. This gentleman followed the elevating profession of torturing and burning heretics in Germany,—the territory especially assigned to him. It looked as if he had come to Leipzig to follow up Eck's verbal thunder with the inquisitorial lightning, and make of Luther actually another Hus. When he found that he would not have an opportunity for plying his hideous trade this time, he ventured into territory where he was a stranger: he attempted a theological argument with Luther. He asserted that by denying the primacy of ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... 1565, peremptory orders to Margaret of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, to proceed against heretics. So Philip's duplicity was revealed and the die cast. One thing was fortunate: the worst was known. Protests poured in, a veritable flood—protests against all Inquisitorial methods in a land accustomed to liberty—the prince, meantime, remaining moderate, to the exasperation of the Protestants, whose blood boiled at the prospect of an Inquisition in their midst and for their extermination. From Breda, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... every coloured person's complexion is prima facie evidence of his being a slave; and the lowest villain in the country, should he be a white man, has the legal power to arrest, and question, in the most inquisitorial and insulting manner, any coloured person, male or female, that he may find at large, particularly at night and on Sundays, without a written pass, signed by the master or some one in authority; or ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft

... the abbe, with a severe and inquisitorial look, under which Derues remained quite untroubled; "it is an attribute of God to reward and to punish, and the Almighty is not deceived by him who deceives men. The Psalmist has said, 'Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and upright ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... are ipso facto scoundrels and ferae naturae, with no rights that any slanderer is bound to respect. Here alone, the possession of a fortune puts a man automatically upon the defensive, and exposes him to special legislation of a rough and inquisitorial character and to the special animosity of judges, district attorneys and juries. It would be a literal impossibility for an Englishman worth $100,000,000 to avoid public office and public honour; it would be equally impossible for an American worth ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan

... Miss Vance was a fashionable teacher in New York, who was going to spend a year abroad with two wealthy pupils. She was a thin woman, quietly dressed; white hair and black brows, with gold eye-glasses bridging an aquiline nose, gave her a commanding, inquisitorial air. ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis

... led by Frederick II, were enacting severe laws against heresy, but chiefly because in the new Mendicant Orders there were now to be found men of sufficient knowledge and training to cope with the difficulty of unmasking heresy. But it is a mistake to suppose that the inquisitorial work was a perquisite of the Dominicans. Both Orders alike were employed by the Papacy in the unsavoury duty, although ultimately the Dominicans took the larger share. For the service of the wretched, to which the Franciscans ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... in the morning, when, we arrived for me to present myself to the British Authority and as the local officials did not in the slightest way interfere with my free passage nor subject me to any sort of inquisitorial interrogations (which in other colonies and under other Protectorates I had been obliged to undergo) I gave orders for our immediate departure as I was anxious to commence our march as ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... latent jealousy he had entertained of the minister tended to disappear under the fire of these inquisitorial interviews, and Ringfield might always be credited with having fine command over ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... not unreasonably numerous, nor were they inquisitorial; nevertheless, it proved that not one-half of those who were addressed cared to answer them. It was, of course, desirable to know a great deal more than could have been asked for or published with propriety, such as ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster

... as a pattern of administration a despotism such as the West has never experienced. It is inquisitorial, severe—sometimes, perhaps, wantonly cruel. But from the fearful pitfalls that encompass weakness it is certain to be sleeplessly vigilant and in the highest degree virile, forceful, and efficient. Now it will ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... honest, and the upheaval was caused by the agitation of demagogues. The President, they asserted, had destroyed confidence by his attack on the commercial class. Federal prosecutions, new laws, and the enforcement of inquisitorial pure-food regulations had made it impossible for business to live. ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... government was as much a check as an assistance to Piero's schemes, bringing him so frequently into requisition for official intrigues that he had less opportunity for counterplotting, while his knowledge of State secrets which he might not compromise, of the far-reaching vision of Inquisitorial eyes, and of the swift and relentless execution of those unknown osservatori who had been unfaithful to their primal duty as spies, made him dare less where others were concerned than he would have ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... and a friend of yours, of course. But, well, there it is, a mere fancy, of course, but unhappily my old friend doesn't take to him. He, he thinks that he's rather inquisitorial. A ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony

... severity were employed, and the Roman people, overburdened with the taxes laid upon them by the Pope's nephews, were exasperated beyond endurance by the religious zeal of the Dominicans, in whose hands the inquisitorial power was placed. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... erected close to the church a small building which they intended should serve as an inquisitorial prison where they might keep in confinement any heretics on whom they were desirous of expending their religious zeal. To this place Nigel was taken, and thrust into one of its dungeons built especially under the priests' directions. It was, in truth, little better ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston

... for a moment glancing from his guest to his wife, and in that instant of scrutiny whatever of the inquisitorial might have lurked in his eyes left them for a bland suavity. Conscience had hastened forward and her lips were smiling. Farquaharson's eyes dared to meet his own with ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... the last hundred years more than one officer has believed that infanticide had been suppressed by his efforts, and yet the practice is by no means extinct. In the Agra Province the severely inquisitorial measures adopted in 1870, and rigorously enforced, have no doubt done much to break the custom, but, in the neighbouring province of Oudh, the practice continued to be common for many years later. A clear case in the Rai Bareli ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... so angered the pope that he called together an inquisitorial board and had Galileo tried by this Romish tribunal, and Galileo was sentenced to imprisonment for what Catholicism termed ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... ancient traditions. [Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle, 44.] The practice of Jewish rites, known as "Judaizing," under the wide relationships and high connections of the conversos, long went on unchecked. In 1475 the pope conferred on his legate in Castile full inquisitorial powers to prosecute and punish "Judaizing" Christians; but the mandate was not carried out. [Footnote: Lea, in Am. Hist. ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... the whistle of the three o'clock steamboat as it neared the landing just beyond the hotel gates. Three o'clock! Then Gannett would soon be back—he had told her to expect him before four. She rose hurriedly, her face averted from the inquisitorial facade of the hotel. She could not see him just yet; she could not go indoors. She slipped through one of the overgrown garden-alleys and climbed a ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... hat. His manner now was no longer inquisitorial. With the closing of his notebook a new geniality had taken the place of ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of the conscription, of a heavy taxation, of an inquisitorial police, and of a totally enslaved press—these, and all other evils attendant on this elaborate system of military despotism, were endured for so many years chiefly in consequence of the skill with which Napoleon, according ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... well informed.... The examination of the parish books was also a labour of love and source of endless amusement. They mostly went as far back as a century and a half, and were, in the elder times, filled with such entries as bespoke a very strange condition of society. The inquisitorial practices and punitive power of the ministry could not be exceeded in countries enslaved by the priesthood of the Church of Rome. Forced confessions, the denial of religious rites even on the bed of death, excommunication, shameful exposures, and a rigid ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various

... throttled. And at no long interval of time the blight of Spain was destined to descend on Italy, paralyzing the fair movements of her manifold existence to a rigid uniformity, shrouding the light and color of her art and letters in the blackness of inquisitorial gloom. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... memory—of the further persecution which disfigured the "spacious days of great Elizabeth," not to mention the long and shameful history of the Penal Laws, he fixed his mind upon lurid legends of the reign of unhappy Mary Tudor, illustrated by prints in Fox's Book of Martyrs; upon inquisitorial tortures, the very thought of which—even out of doors in the pleasant spring sunshine—made him break into a heavy sweat, and which, by some grotesque perversion of ideas, he believed to be not only the necessary ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet



Words linked to "Inquisitorial" :   inquisitor, inquiring



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